I must be doing something stupid. Launched the boat today, put the rig together no problem. When I got to my slip, I decided to shorten the headstay before tuning the rig. It's a 2001 boat so I believe it's a Harken 00. After I shortened about 3/8", I pinned the clevis to the stemhead, but the drum/foil/etc assembly will not lower down over the ends of the stemhead pin. It's hung up a good inch above the pin. Seems like it's hanging on the turnbuckle somehow. I tried to spin both in case the drum will only drop over the turnbuckle in one position, but could not get it to drop. Any ideas out there (Harken is closed or I'd ask them) --- thanks in advance.

I've experienced similar occurrences when rigging and have found the following to be the culprit. When the furler unit is raised to de-rig, it slides up on the foil (or the foil slides down into it). This causes the foil to bind on the turnbuckle, preventing the unit from going back down far enough to engage the clevis pin. In order to correct it, grasp the furler unit firmly and then pull upwards on the foil. This effectively slides the furler unit down on the foil. Sometime it takes two people to accomplish the maneuver. A little spray lubricant such as McLube or WD-40 can help, too. If the foil pulls completely out from the furler unit, carefully reinsert it only until the notched out areas between the furler and foil align so that the "key" can be reinserted. If you have any problems or questions, feel free to call me and I can give you more details.

I had this problem last year. The tack of the sail is attached using an eye strap which is rivetted to the furler's tube (at least on the 2001 boats). If you slid it up too far, those rivets move up the foil until they're comfortably resting in a notch in the foil. Once there, it is impossible to slide them back down. I spent too many hours on this last year. My dealer, Custom Offshore, finally figured out what had gone wrong, and instructed me to drill out the rivets, slide the unit down, then replace them and be careful not to do this again. Instead of replacing the rivets, Harken sent me a new tube, which I installed.

As a result of my experience, Harken actually stickered the manuals (which had instructed us to slide the unit up, causing this problem). It was only a problem last year, as Harken has changed the design so the rivets don't protrude into that space any more. Check the threads from last May for more information, or write me at MikeB2122@yahoo.com

Mike was exactly right. I did end up having to drill out the rivets, somehow the rivet heads inside the torque tube got hung up in the foil slot where the wedge goes to lock the foil in place. No amount of persuasion would break them loose, had to drill out the rivets. Fortunately, Harken did expedite another torque tube to me because although I was willing to drill out the rivets and replace them with pop rivets, they told me the factory supplied rivets were more substantial than any pop rivets I could buy. And after drilling them out, I can attest to their claim. Thanks to Mike and Harken, I was sailing this weekend. If you have a 00AL furler, you must be careful of this, it can keep you off the water for a while if you let it happen to you.